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It's Fun to Play the Piano ... Please Pass It On!

You would get along very well with my parents. My mom can't stand opera singers, and my dad is an architectural photographer - no fickle moving subjects!

OP: That is simultaneously a little depressing and incredibly profound. No voices = no humans, although I'm sure he'll be learning about instruments soon, but on the other hand, think about it: how alien would it be to someone who had only ever heard music through via the human voice? How bizarre would the oboe sound, or the bassoon, or baroque strings!

[...] OP: That is simultaneously a little depressing and incredibly profound. No voices = no humans, although I'm sure he'll be learning about instruments soon, but on the other hand, think about it: how alien would it be to someone who had only ever heard music through via the human voice? How bizarre would the oboe sound, or the bassoon, or baroque strings!

+1. Kind of. I think. Maybe. (We're not disagreeing). The human voice brings a warmth of contact that no instrument can bring. Instrumentals can be sublime, but when you add a well tuned voice or choir, Ka-blam!, instant identification with the best of intimate human sound!

Although, here's a story~~Shortly after my son was born (months, in fact) when we lived in Massachusetts, where we listened to Morning Pro Musica with Robert J. Lurtsema every morning without fail, which started every morning, without fail, with bird songs... (our TV reception was always snowier than that in the link, until we got cable... but we listened to Morning Pro Musica on the radio, which was clear enough from Boston...)... on April 1st, Robert played a trick on us, and played whale songs instead of bird songs. I was holding my son in the crook of my arm at the time, and remember the look in my infant son's eyes when he heard the whale songs. His eyes got wide and pensive at the same time, like he had heard that sound, somewhere before. Then, it occurred to me, that that is what life sounds like when you are in the womb.

My great-nephew, four years old, said to his father, listening to classical music on the car radio:

"Dad, this music doesn't have any people in it!"

Cheers!

Wonderful!

Actually, I was considering starting a thread about recordings that capture the artist's breathing. I've heard it in both violin and piano concertos. Personally, I find it extremely compelling. It makes the music seem more alive and personal. You can hear their emotions through the rhythm of their breathing. Thoughts?

[...] I was considering starting a thread about recordings that capture the artist's breathing. I've heard it in both violin and piano concertos. Personally, I find it extremely compelling. It makes the music seem more alive and personal. You can hear their emotions through the rhythm of their breathing. Thoughts?

Depends on the placement of the microphones, the context, and the overall soundscape. Sometimes it can be intimate and compelling, sometimes irritating and distracting. Just my opinion.

I agree. Nothing beats a good piece of music sung in 4-part harmony, like Bach motets (Jesu, meine Freude, BWV 227 is my favorite - partly because I sang it in school). Or even 40-part harmony like Tallis's Spem in alium.

_________________________
"I don't play accurately - anyone can play accurately - but I play with wonderful expression. As far as the piano is concerned, sentiment is my forte. I keep science for Life."

Faure's and Sibelius's Pelléas et Mélisande and Schoenberg's Pelleas und Melisande are much better, because they obey Debussy's dictum.....

_________________________
"I don't play accurately - anyone can play accurately - but I play with wonderful expression. As far as the piano is concerned, sentiment is my forte. I keep science for Life."

BTW, a kewpie doll to anyone who can come up with the rhyme to "About binomial theorem I'm teeming with a lot of news" who doesn't already know it and without looking it up.

Actually I take it back. Anybody who would get it, I wouldn't believe that they didn't already know it or look it up.

...to think that I'd always imagined that G & S is an acquired taste that only the British could acquire (like Marmite)..........

_________________________
"I don't play accurately - anyone can play accurately - but I play with wonderful expression. As far as the piano is concerned, sentiment is my forte. I keep science for Life."

Of course piano is my favorite but opera has some of the [ if not the] most beautiful melodies....I just wish the vibrato could be less in most cases.

I wish I could say the piano is the best but I really believe it is second fiddle to the human voice. Pianos can sound and feel similar[ I hate saying that] but the human voice is always individualistic. Well, at least the spirit behind the voice....maybe the same is true for playing the piano.